Apple's got an official What's New in Safari 5 rundown, but it is, as you'd imagine, full of effervescent hyperbole and not a lot of nuts and bolts. Let's run down what's new and worth noticing in Safari 5:

Safari Reader

The major new thing you can actually use in Safari 5 is Safari Reader, a tiny little button that appears in the Smart Address Field. It appears while browsing certain web pages, mainly blog-style posts that have long blocks of text. Go ahead, click it.

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You get a text-focused, center-aligned, print-friendly view of the main article/post text, with its own scroll bars and email/print buttons. Yes, it's a pretty direct grab from bookmarklets and services like Readability or Instapaper, but it's also a smart offering to build into a browser. And, as you'd imagine, Apple does a good job with text layout and fonts.

Search-able Address Field

Can't remember anything about that site you were browsing earlier, but know it related to Magnetic Fields' discography? Just type in any part of the URL, blog title, or page you can remember, and Safari will match it up from your history or bookmarks. Helpful stuff—but keep that kind of Everything You've Ever Seen reach in mind if you're sharing a computer, and adjust your retention settings accordingly.

New Tabs by Default

Apple finally gives into its users' demands and offers a setting, inside the "Tabs" section of Preferences, to make all new windows open up inside tabs, regardless of sizing or layout. With "Open in New Tab" set as your default, Command-clicking will open a tab in the background with or without focus, depending on another setting on the page, and Command+Shift-clicking opens windows in new windows.

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Extensions to Come

There aren't any add-ons available yet, but Apple's opened the door to developers, and extensions are likely on their way—"later this summer," according to the Safari landing page. They'll be built around common web scripting languages like JavaScript and CSS (akin to Google's extensions), signed by Apple, and available in a gallery.

Other Updates

A few other items of note in Safari 5 that either can't quite merit a screenshot, or aren't fully available to everyone: